Watched folder endpoint settings

Use the following settings to configure a watched folder
endpoint.

Name:

(Mandatory) Identifies the endpoint. Do not include a < character because
it will truncate the name displayed in Workspace. If you’re entering
a URL as the name of the endpoint, ensure that it conforms with
the syntax rules specified in RFC1738.

Description:

A description of the endpoint. Do not include a < character because
it will truncate the description displayed in Workspace.

Path:

(Mandatory) Specifies the watched folder location. In a clustered environment,
this setting must point to a shared network folder that is accessible from
every computer in the cluster.

Asynchronous:

Identifies the invocation type as asynchronous or synchronous. The
default value is asynchronous. Asynchronous is recommended for long-lived processes,
while synchronous is recommended for transient or short-lived processes.

Cron Expression:

Enter a cron expression if the watched folder must be scheduled
by using a cron expression. When this setting is configured, Repeat Interval
is ignored. For details about configuring the cron expression see Class CronTrigger. When this setting
is configured, the Repeat Interval is ignored.

Repeat Interval:

The interval in seconds for scanning the watched folder for input.
Unless the Throttle setting is enabled, Repeat Interval should be
longer than the time to process an average job; otherwise, the system
may become overloaded. The default value is 5. See the description
for Batch Size for additional information.

Repeat Count:

Number of times the watched folder scans the folder or directory.
A value of -1 indicates indefinite scanning. The default value is
-1.

Throttle:

When this option is selected, it limits the number of watched
folder jobs that LiveCycle processes at any given time. The maximum
number of jobs is determined by the Batch Size value. (See About throttling.)

User Name:

(Mandatory) The user name that is used when invoking a target service
from the watched folder. The default value is SuperAdmin.

Domain Name:

(Mandatory) The user’s domain. The default value is DefaultDom.

Batch Size:

The number of files or folders to be picked up per scan.
Use to prevent an overload on the system; scanning too many files
at one time can cause a crash. The default value is 2.

The
Repeat Interval and Batch Size settings determine how many files
Watched Folder picks up in every scan. Watched Folder uses a Quartz
thread pool to scan the input folder. The thread pool is shared
with other services. If the scan interval is small, the threads
will scan the input folder often. If files are dropped frequently into
the watched folder, then you should keep the scan interval small.
If files are dropped infrequently, use a larger scan interval so
that the other services can use the threads.

If there is a
large volume of files being dropped, make the batch size large.
For example, if the service invoked by the watched folder endpoint
can process 700 files per minute, and users drop files into the
input folder at the same rate, then setting the Batch Size to 350
and the Repeat Interval to 30 seconds will help Watched Folder performance
without incurring the cost of scanning the watched folder too often.

When
files are dropped into the watched folder, it lists the files in
the input, which can reduce performance if scanning is happening
every second. Increasing the scan interval can improve performance.
If the volume of files being dropped is small, adjust the Batch
Size and Repeat Interval accordingly. For example, if 10 files are
dropped every second, try setting the Repeat Interval to 1 second
and the Batch Size to 10.

Wait Time:

The time, in milliseconds, to wait before you scan a folder
or file after it is created. For example, if the wait time is 3,600,000
milliseconds (one hour) and the file was created one minute ago,
this file will be picked up after 59 or more minutes have passed.
The default value is 0.

This setting is useful to ensure that
a file or folder is completely copied to the input folder. For example,
if you have a large file to process and the file takes ten minutes
to download, set the wait time to 10*60 *1000 milliseconds. This prevents
the watched folder from scanning the file if it is not ten minutes
old.

Exclude File Pattern:

A semi-colon (;) delimited list of patterns that a watched folder
uses to determine which files and folders to scan and pick up. Any
file or folder with this pattern will not be scanned for processing.

This
setting is useful when the input is a folder with multiple files.
The contents of the folder can be copied into a folder with a name
that will be picked up by the watched folder. This prevents the
watched folder from picking up a folder for processing before the
folder is completely copied into the input folder.

(Mandatory) A semi-colon (;) delimited list of patterns that the
watched folder uses to determine which folders and files to scan
and pick up. For example, if the Include File Pattern is input*,
all files and folders that match input* are picked up. This includes
files and folders named input1, input2, and so on.

The folder where the saved results are stored. If the results
do not appear in this folder, check the failure folder. Read-only
files are not processed and will be saved in the failure folder.
This value can be an absolute or relative path with the following
file patterns:

%F = filename prefix

%E = filename extension

%Y = year (full)

%y = year (last two digits)

%M = month

%D = day of month

%d = day of year

%H = hour (24-hour clock)

%h = hour (12-hour clock)

%m = minute

%s = second

%l = millisecond

%R = random number (between 0 and 9)

%P = process or job id

For example, if it
is 8 PM on July 17, 2009 and you specify C:/Test/WF0/failure/%Y/%M/%D/%H/,
the result folder is C:/Test/WF0/failure/2009/07/17/20.

If
the path is not absolute but relative, the folder will be created
inside the watched folder. The default value is result/%Y/%M/%D/,
which is the Result folder inside the watched folder. For more information
about file patterns, see About file patterns.

Note: The smaller the size
of the result folders, the better Watched Folder performance will
be. For example, if the estimated load for the watched folder is
1000 files every hour, try a pattern like result/%Y%M%D%H so
that a new subfolder is created every hour. If the load is smaller
(for example, 1000 files per day), you could use a pattern like result/%Y%M%D.

Preserve Folder:

The location where files are stored after successful scanning and
pick-up. The path can be an absolute, a relative, or a null directory
path. You can use file patterns, as described for Result Folder.
The default value is preserve/%Y/%M/%D/.

Failure Folder:

The folder where failure files are saved. This location is
always relative to the watched folder. You can use file patterns,
as described for Result Folder.

Read-only files are not processed
and will be saved in the failure folder.

The default value
is failure/%Y/%M/%D/.

Preserve On Failure:

Preserve input files in case of failure to execute the operation
on a service. The default value is true.

Overwrite Duplicate Filenames:

When set to True, files in the results folder and preserve
folder are overwritten. When set to False, files and folders with
a numeric index suffix are used for the name. The default value
is False.

Purge Duration:

(Mandatory) Files and folders in the result folder are purged when
they are older than this value. This value is measured in days.
This setting is useful in ensuring that the result folder does not
become full.

A value of -1 days indicates to never delete
the results folder. The default value is -1.

Operation Name:

(Mandatory) A list of operations that can be assigned to
the watched folder endpoint.

Input Parameter Mappings:

Used to configure the input required to process the service
and operation. The settings available depend on which service is using
the watched folder endpoint. Here are the two types of inputs:

Literal:

The watched folder uses the value entered in the field as
it is displayed. All basic Java types are supported. For example,
if an API uses input such as String, long, int,
and Boolean, the string is converted to the proper
type and the service is invoked.

Variable:

The value entered is a file pattern that the watched folder
uses to pick the input. For example, in the case of the encrypt
password service, where the input document must be a PDF file, the
user can use *.pdf as the file pattern. The watched folder will
pick up all files in the watched folder that match this pattern and
invoke the service for each file. When a variable is used, all input
files are converted to documents. Only APIs that use Document as
the input type are supported.

Output Parameter Mappings:

Used to configure the outputs of the service and operation.
The settings available depend on which service is using the watched
folder endpoint.

Watched Folder output can be a single document,
a list of documents, or a map of documents. These output documents
are then saved in the result folder, using the pattern specified
in the Output Parameter Mapping.

Note: Specifying
names that result in unique output filenames improves performance.
For example, consider the case where the service returns one output document
and the Output Parameter Mapping maps it to %F.%E (the
file name and extension of the input file). In this case, if users
drop files with the same name every minute, and the result folder
is configured to result/%Y/%M/%D, and the Overwrite
Duplicate Filename setting is off, Watched Folder will try to resolve
the duplicate file names. The process of resolving duplicate file
names can affect performance. In this situation, changing the Output
Parameter Mapping to %F_%h_%m_%s_%l to add hours,
minutes, seconds, and milliseconds to the name, or ensuring that
dropped files have unique names may improve performance.